The Mirage F.1 owes its creation to a private initiative by the French Dassault company. The Armée de l' Air ordered the construction of two prototypes designated Mirage F.2 and F.3 with JTF10 engines. However, Dassault built one more prototype with smaller dimensions and an Atar 9K engine at its own expense. This prototype, which took off for the first time on 23 December 1966, was chosen and production airframes were introduced into the armament of the Armée de l'Air as single-seat Mirage F.1C fighters and two-seat Mirage F.1B training fighters. During the service, part of the Mirage F.1 machines was modified by adding a refueling probe to the Mirage F.1C-200 version. The French Air Force also used two reconnaissance versions, the Mirage F. 1CR and the Mirage F.1-200 converted Mirage F.1CT. The Armée de l'Air received a total of 246 examples of all versions of the Mirage F.1. The Mirage F.1 also became a successful export item. It entered service in Europe, Spain and Greece . In South America, Ecuador became the only user, while in Africa and Asia, the Mirage F.1 was included in the armament of Gabon, South Africa, Morocco, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait. As a result, Mirage F.1s have been involved in many conflicts around the world, from non-fire combats between Greek fighters and Turkish opponents, through French actions in Chad, Ecuadorian border conflicts with Peru, South African Mirages fighting against Cuban aircraft from Angola, and participation in the war against Iraq, where Mirage F.1s were flying on both sides. Even today, the Mirage F.1 is in service with several countries.
The Mirage F.1CR version was flown only by the Armée de l Air and was the last to be phased out in June 2014. At that time, the last unit to use this version was phased out, Escadron de Reconnaissance 2/33 Savoie. Before that, Mirage F.1CRs were deployed in Chad, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Mali and Libya.
Compared with our earlier Mirage F1 releases, this one offers a new sprue with the parts typical for the CR version, including the Corail chaff-flares pods which were introduced to the Mirage CR airframe late at its service life.
The decal sheet covers three French examples, each in a different scheme. Machine 33-TA wears a very special one and also a pair of "kill marks" on the side of the fuselage, denoting two US F-15 fighters shot down during the Red Flag exercise. Well, not really shot down, but I bet that their US jockeys were not exactly happy either... :-)
- Excellent model with wide range of underwing stores.
- Interesting color schemes
- Separately available accessory sets, masks, resin sets and figures